Richmond dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1884-1903, 1887-12-22
TREASURY SURPLUS.
Holiday" RECESS CAUSES A LIVELY
DEBATE III THE SENATE.
The Presidents Message Sharply Criticised.
Messrs. Beck, Vest, and Others
Defend the Administration.
lBr telegraph to the pispatch.l

Defend the Administration.
lBy telegraph 10 the Dispatch.l
WASHINGTON, December 21.-In the
Senate to-day in the debate upon the
holiday adjournment resolution Mr..
Plumb referred TO Mr. Pughs resolution
that Congress should not adjourn until
action was taken for the disposal OF the
surplusin the Treasury, and said he did
not agree with the President in many OF
his statements in his late annual mes
sage, and he did not agree with him IN
saying that the responsibility OF non
action in the matter of the surplus would
rest on Congress. For his own part he
would be glad to remain in Washington
during the holidays and legislate on the
subject OF the surplus, but not
with any sense of that responsibility
of Congress which the President
had set forth. The primary respon-
sibility for the present condition
of the Treasury resided, he thought,
with the President, who totally disre-
garded the law which required him
practically to spend the surplus In the
purchase of the national debt The
Presidents excuse for not doing so was
that the provision of the law was found
in an appropriation bill, and was, there
fore, in the Presidents opinion q tenn
porary expedient merely. He Plumb
did not know any warrant for the Pre-
sident distin ymshing between laws
passed by Congress and saying that
one provision of law was less man.
datory on him than another provision.
1t did not come with good grace
from the President to criticise the par
ticular places where important provisions
of law were found. The President
would find that in attempting to do so
he would have a large contract on his
hands, and one which might result some
what disastrously 10 him. The Presi-
dent in his message had omitted to state
one important fact, which was that the
last Congress passed a law requiring him
affirmatively to pay ten millions month
in the discharge of the public debt, and
that the President had put that bill in
his pocket, thus preventing its becoming
a law.
MIR. Beck remarked that the President
had paid money outeyen fasterthan that
bill required.
Mr. Plumb regarded that as only an
other way that the President had for
saying that he thought he could do bet
ter himself than Congress knew how to
tell him. The President had also for
gotten to take note of the fact that the
river and hsrbor bill, which appropriated
some S14. 600, 600, had failed not because
OF any lack of action by Congress. The
deficiency bill, covering over IS, 600, coo,
had also failed last session because Of the
neglect of the Democratic majority in
the House, and these two sums would
have made a very comfortable al lition
TO the current funds Of the people at this
iuncture.
Mr.. Beck said be did not propose to
go into the debate in regard to the Pre-
sident's policy on resolution for the
holiday adjournment lie assumed that
the resolution would prevail. Such a
recess was usual and he did not know
any exception to it. He could not I'M
derstand why the Senate should now, on
a motion like that, go into discussion
as to the Presidents policy, when they
would have all of next year for it; but
there were some things which the cOun
try ought to know in connection with the
statement made by the Senator from
Kansas The Senator had not told the
country that the policy OF the Republican
party, by imposing and maintaining I'M
necessarily high taxation, had produced
the surplus, and that that same party was
determined to hold it there or to waste II
III such schemes as the Republican party
might dceirc. The Senator. had not told
that the Republicen party had so adj
iusted the debts of the United States that
they could not be paid with money thus
brought by high taxation into the Trea-
sury unless such premiums were paid to
bOndholders rs they might demand.
The policy of the Republican party had
postponed the payment of $4,000 900
of debt till 1891 and $40, 100000 TIL
1907. The President had paid
every dollar OF the per cent.
bonds that were payable without paying
the premium which the bondholders
might see tit to ask. The Democratic
party. headed by the President, was en-
deayOring TO reduce taxes so that so
large a surplus should not come into the
Treasury. All that the President had
said WAS that 1t was not n proper thing
for him or the Secretary Of the Treasury
to do TO pay Sl30 or $50 for every 500
OF public debt, and that II was the duty
of Congress 10 reduce the taxation Of the
people down to point that tn re would
not be a surplus. de thought the course
of the President and the Democratic
party would be fully vindicated, while 1t
would be very hard for the gentlemen on
the other side to explain why they bad
kept up taxation to the extent which
they have done.
Mr.. Dolph argued that il the proper
appropriations we're made for rivers and
haibors, for public buildings, for coast
forufcations, for dependent pensioners,
for encouragement of American com
merce, and for the Nicaraguan canal,
there would be no surplus in the Trea-
sury, and he thought such policy was
to be preferred to reduction OF the
tariff
Mr.. Vest, in response to Mr.. Plumbs
criticism of the President for vetOing
the river and harbor bill. reminded that
Senator that the most virnlent attacks
upon that bill had come from himself
Plumb. He had fought the bill by
sections, and in the aggregate had ridi-
culed it, denounced it, aud voted against
it Tho Executive had only acted in
the line of the Senator sargument. The
President had in his annual message de-
fined, and sharply defined, the issue be-
tween the two great parties, and he
Vest endorsed that message from be-
ginning to end. He was prepared
TO go into the canvass upon it, and what
ever the result might be, he declared
now publicly that il the President had
done nothing less than write that mes
sage be had proven himself to be an